Loosening Up Bk. 09 Ch. 11-15

Wendy also had no idea of her ultimate destination, or even the intermediate safe house where she'd be transferred to other hands, who'd see her to safety. Wendy had received a call from Dr. Cronin reporting that Dev had been brought to consciousness from the induced coma. He reported significant pain, worried about his family, and then slept due to the pain killers being used. Cronin thought he was healing faster than expected. He mentioned around-the-clock guards assuring his safety in a part of the hospital isolated from other patients.

The Marshall tapped Wendy on the shoulder and gestured to the door. Wendy went with him, slowly, looking back for a last look at her friends as tears flooded her eyes.

Wendy said firmly, "I love you all. We WILL meet again."

The group left. Dave looked out the front window as some of the women started to neaten some of the home's furnishing. Dave spotted Sharon standing beside the limousine with one suitcase, also crying. When she saw Wendy coming, she looked up at the house.

Sharon saw Dave looking out the door. She gave a little wave and blew him a kiss. What was happening was obvious to him.

A few words were exchanged with the Marshall, and then Wendy, Sharon, and the Marshall got into the limo. Dave could see Willow and an older woman already in the car. The car pulled away slowly, and disappeared past the gatehouse. They were gone.

Julie held onto her husband as she watched the car disappear. She said, "Just so you know, as far as ANY records we have for the Circle, no one named Dev, Sharon, Wendy, or Willow Connor even existed."

Dave nodded. He wondered what else would happen with the trail with their names.

After Wendy's exit, no one made any further reference to the family. Those members who'd been at the short departure meet with Wendy briefly mentioned the family safety to each other and that was the end of the discussion. Everyone in the Circle and that knew the Connors were warned to never mention their name again and 'reminded' that they'd never known anybody by that name.

The Circle Board made a decision to hold the Connor house in the Board's name, a point already executed in 'official' records by Julie, the treasurer, as a security measure. No one was ready to move in.

When some of the university students who were pledging the Circle learned about the home's empty state, they petitioned the board to lease them the house. The home had four bedrooms, and with some minor modifications could have two more by splitting the media room in the house into two small private rooms. Thus, six students immediately moved into home: Piper, Bunny, Harper, Logan, Jon, and Caleb. They understood that this was a temporary arrangement, and the board promised them adequate notice if they decided to change the rental policy.

Somehow, the official books in the Circle revealed that the home had always been a home that students and others pledging the Circle used in order to be close to the core group. Julie was quite expert at her creative record and bookkeeping.

Cricket gave Dave another copy of her book. She said with a smirk, "We went into another printing. Amazingly, all of the copies available for distribution suffered water damage in the warehouse and were destroyed." She grinned, and then whispered, "Nothing else was damaged. In this slight revision, there's no mention of the unmentionables, sad as that is."

A few days later, Helen Ursinger, the lead producer of the reality TV series pulled Dave aside. "I had some visitors. It seems that I only dreamed we had some old friends. They're gone. The never appeared. I guess I only dreamed about them."

Dave didn't ask about the extent of 'gone'. He assumed that the Connor's government friends had purged any video of their presence, certainly in the videos that aired or that were scheduled to be aired. At that point in the second season was about half done, and season one was a favorite in the middle of the night with a scheduled time to air at three a.m. on a local cable channel. The video feeds all came from Spring Garden Productions in Atlanta, so a change there, rippled across every outlet.

Dave thought of a hundred other loose ends, but couldn't think how to remedy the situation. He knew that bank, tax, social security, military, and any other kind of public records would have been tampered with to make what had been visible become invisible.

As Dave walked around the core prior to starting his service at the bar for the evening, he noted several interesting things. First, Toby and Danica were still posing nude for an equally nude Colleen as she painted yet another rendition of their making love. She volunteered that she'd sold the last painting of them for $7,500, and had consequently paid each of them a 'royalty' of $1,000 each. Dave started to think he should buy one of the paintings before the price went up any higher.

The second interesting thing surprised him in two ways. Tatiana was teaching her undergraduate robotics class using the Circle's core classroom. She had a dozen students and had filled the white board with mathematical equations and a few diagrams. He'd never seen her teaching on-site before.

More of surprise was that in the class sat his step-children: Matt and Rose. They were taking notes and looking as involved as any of the other older students. He wanted to inquire about that later. What were they doing?

Bar duty was routine. His companions behind the bar were Jake and Ron, with Cindy, Merry, and Meggie serving the tables. Of course, the three girls were wearing their cute, little waitress uniforms that revealed most of their feminine parts in sexy ways.

Tatiana, Matt, and Rose showed up on the patio just after six p.m. when her class ended. Dave hailed his wife and said, "You teaching that course in the core now?"

She laughed, "It was a request. A couple of the men in the class are Phi Theta Rho members. Their GPAs aren't high enough to qualify for your student liaison program, but they wanted a look-see at the facility. I agreed to hold one class here to mollify them. The other students just thought it was cool to go to someplace that appeared on a TV show."

Dave asked, "What about Matt and Rose being in the class? What's that about?"

"They got permission from the high school to take the class and get science credits for it. They're good; both have an A average on the quizzes. The midterm is next week, so expect to see a couple of nervous kids. I'm also not cutting them any slack relative to the other students because they happen to be in high school, but I'm sure from their level of participation that they'll do fine on the exam."

"Sounds good to me. Let me know if they need coaching or extra help."

"Oh, don't worry. Jazz and Chelsea already volunteered to help either or both of them. To tell the truth, I think they just want to get them alone again."

"Again?"

Tatiana laughed, took her glass of Chardonnay, and danced away from the bar with a little wave over her shoulder.

After the initial rush to get a drink at the bar, Roy sidled up to the bar to talk to Dave. "While you were away last week, we had a nice local couple stop by and ask about the Circle. I happened to intercept them outside the gate, liked them, and brought them in to talk with Dori and Kat. I hope that was all right. They've watched and re-watched every episode of the TV show, and everyone in their group has read Cricket's book."

Dave said, "So, what's the outcome?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. They were concerned about blind spots in creating their own Circle. There are six couples in their group, and they're already intimate with each other. Everyone is in their late twenties, but scattered around Sarasota geographically.

"The reason I bring this up is that Colin, the young man, asked whether he and his wife Beth could stop by on Saturday to go over a few more things and also to see whether the expert -- that's you -- had returned and was available to talk to them. I told them I'd call them back and let them know a good time."

Dave thought a bit and then started to chuckled. "Why not invite all twelve of the group for Saturday afternoon. Have them come by about four or four-thirty, stay for cocktails and dinner, and then ..." He started laughing, "See whether they want to stay around and see what really happens in the Circle?"

Roy laughed, too. He said, "You devil. You should know that Beth is very attractive. She's your kind of girl, too. What's my wife say about your type, 'small, cute, and fuckable'."

Dave said, "Put the word out to the rest of the Circle that we'll have 'sympathetic' guests on Saturday evening. If you see her now, Erin probably still has time to put something in this week's newsletter. Remind the guests about test results."

Dave thought to himself, 'Newsletter! I wonder if she's mentioned Wendy or Dev or their family in any of the past newsletters. They were all online, sometimes with photos. He said to Roy, "I'll go with you."

Erin was in the board office in the core working on the newsletter when they found her. Roy made his input about the Saturday guests, and she took notes and promised a short piece to call attention to the guests.

Dave then said, "I have a question and a request perhaps based on your answer."

Erin said, "Sure, shoot."

"Have any of our newsletters ever mentioned Dev, Wendy, or Willow?"

Erin thought, "Might be a picture or two, but I don't think we ever featured them. Their turn was coming up, but they've left."

Dave said, "I need you to take down all the newsletters from the Circle's website until we are one-hundred-percent sure that they're not mentioned or shown in any manner -- nor photos. This is very important."

Erin whirled around and in about sixty seconds, she said, "The newsletters are off the website. I'm pretty sure I understand what happened and why they had to leave us. I will do a very thorough scrub through everything that's out there. When I'm through, as far as anything I've done, they will have never existed here."

Dave nodded and this time his usual smile was gone.

Colin and Beth led three other couples onto the patio after their cars were parked. The Saturday weather was perfect. Of course, the patio had the usual mid to late-afternoon sun worshippers, who were slathered with suntan lotion and laying nearly naked in their nearly infinitesimal thongs or G-strings.

Colin kept his head, since he'd seen the scene about ten days earlier. He didn't gawk nearly as much as the three other men. Beth merely whipped off her bright green top and tossed in an empty chair. The other women in their group looked at her as though she'd just sprouted wings and a tail. One by one, they followed her lead.

Roy and Dave met them and brought them all to one of the larger tables to talk. Dave made sure they were plied with some drinks of choice -- beer and wine.

Beth took on the role of spokesperson for the group, initially introducing Ariana Davis and Seth Winston; Kaylee and Oliver King; Amy and Noah Beckler; and then Colin Ruiz and herself Beth Parsons. She explained, "Two other couples couldn't join us tonight because of other commitments."

Dave handed her a water-soluble marker pen. "Write your name just above your left breast. You'll make more friends around here, if you do." Dave and Roy did each other to show the effect. Each person in the group had one of their friends or their spouse print their name as instructed. Dave explained during the activity about how when they mixed groups with a few others near Sarasota and then up near Atlanta that the practice had worked very well.

Just then, Felicity came racing up to Dave with a smile; she was eager for his company and hoped she could join him. She looked at all of the visitors and smiled.

Seth said, "You look just like a movie star I've seen in several films. I'm Seth."

Felicity smiled, "That's because I'm Felicity Jones, sometimes movie star. I'm a friend of one of Dave's wives."

Seth said, "I'm guessing that would be Scarlett?"

Dave and Felicity nodded. She asked, "May I join you. I'd just like to be near my new best male friend." She gestured to Dave and then held his arm against her bare chest.

Dave handed her the pen and she went to print her name, but realized it was difficult because she'd be writing upside down in an awkward position. She turned to Seth. "Will you do me?" She smiled.

Seth took the pen and started. He teased, "'Will you do me?' has several connotations, you know?"

As she took the pen back, she said, "I know. I wanted to tease you and you got it. Maybe we can 'do' each other later tonight after we know each other a little better." She winked at him. Dave thought Seth would keel over -- a genuine A-list movie star had just flirted with him in a salacious manner.

Ariana, his erstwhile partner, said to Felicity, "Don't encourage him. He'll only get worse, and he'll want to follow-through."

Felicity sat beside Dave. "I wasn't teasing. I like the idea of follow-through. I'm in the process of loosening up and getting rid of my old and useless memes."

Dave said to Beth, "Roy told me a little about your nascent group. I think what became the Circle was in about the same place twelve or thirteen years ago."

Beth said, "We're making sure we cover the bases about potential issues that might come up and either fracture our group or impede our having good relationships with each other. We also want to thank you for giving us this afternoon and dinner, so we get a really good look at your operations and what it feels like. Colin and I are already looking to clone some of what you do."

Colin said, "We had a great discussion with Roy, Dori, and Kat about ten days ago. We printed up their list and talked about many of the items a week ago as a group. We thought of a few of our own that we also put on the list." He passed Dave a folded page. "This was the list, but we wanted to test for completeness with you and had some questions about some of the items that Roy, Kat, and Dori suggested."

Dave unfolded the single-spaced typed page. The list was succinct, and at the bottom was a second list, 'Things to Talk to Circle About': Parents, Incest, Diversity, Kids, Rules, Reacting to the Moment, Jealousy-Compersion, Equality, Legal and Tax Status.'

He shrugged, "Let's take them in the order you're concerned about."

Colin also handed over eight lab reports that proved the sexual cleanliness of each guest. He said, "Let's take one of the last ones first -- Reacting to the Moment. Sometimes when we get together, some or all of us only feel the lust we have for each other. We love each other and know it, but ... well, you know, horniness and lust can override rational thought and reason, especially for the men.

"Further, there are two potential candidates to join us, and I confess on behalf of Seth, Oliver, Noah, and myself, that we feel pretty lustful about having the two women also join. They're both knockouts and friends some of the women in the group already know. Also, how do you suggest to someone you'd like to be with that they get tested? How do you let your wife know that you are really horny for someone else without her getting pissed off at you?"

Dave laughed, "My trite response is lots of communication. If your wife knows that you love her, and that she's your 'forever and always home base', she won't mind a little horniness directed at another individual. Of course, with the equality we have here, she enjoys that same privilege, so you have to ask yourself what you'd want to hear that would assuage your anxiety about her interest in another man."

Dave went on, "As to the STD test question, I'd have someone of the same sex discuss the STD test with a candidate. That'll take a lot of the tension and innuendo out of the suggestion. Put another way, a guy can bluntly say to another, 'There's a chance you might get some tail around here; go get tested.' Whereas, a woman might be more subtle, perhaps something along the lines of 'I know some of the guys are interested in you. If you think you might welcome their advances, you might prepare to meet their interest with your clean bill of health; they'll have one to show you as well.'

"To your other questions in this area, I bet everyone in the Circle has a slightly different take on the issue about reacting with lust versus love. Here's my response, but I'm not speaking for the group and maybe no one but myself.

"I like sex. I really enjoy sex with each new partner. I prefer to have a developing relationship with a woman before we engage, but I'm more than willing to waive that when I see the potential for that relationship to develop after we indulge our lust."

Dave looked at Felicity and she spoke, "That's kind of how Dave and I got started. I'd heard a lot about him from Scarlett, and he knew a little about my career just because he keeps up to speed on the entertainment sector. We met, shared a dinner, talked a lot, and the next night he gave me The Experience. I've never been the same since." She giggled.

Kaylee said, "I read about that in the book, but it sounded like exaggeration and poetic license to me."

Felicity shook her head and gestured around the patio, "Ask any woman here. The Experience might register as one of the most profound moments of your life when you reflect back on it. Yes, it's sex, but it's the difference between the word orgasm in lower case letters andORGASMSin upper-case bolded italic letters in some giant font size. Many of the women here and I attest that it was the most profound experience of our lives."

The new group looked surprised.

Dave said, "I'm not sure what makes The Experience so profound for the women, but I think part of it has to do with our burgeoning relationship and not just lust and horniness. I think that sex puts the icing on a loving relationship, and love can put the icing on a relationship based on sex. A relationship only based on sex may be fun in the short-term but will ultimately be unsatisfactory. Love is needed to complete the story. I know from reading that The Experience releases a huge dose of oxytocin in the woman, and that inevitably means she falls in love with the person administering the event to her."

Oliver said, "The way you said that leads me to think that you wouldn't turn down an opportunity for a ... fun relationship, even though it might go no further."

Dave shrugged, "I confess to having done that many times and to having enjoyed the circumstances immensely. A few times a beautiful relationship blossomed out of our lustful coupling -- even a wife or two or three. You each need to create your own morality about the situation. It's like the old question some people ask about 'how many dates do we go on before we sleep together?' None? One? Three? More?"

The group laughed.

Beth said, "We had a question about the ... prevalence of incest in the Circle. We're not the sex police, so that's not the nature of the question. It's just that as we start to reveal more and more about how we live, several of us have parents or siblings or both that seem like potential members in our group."

Roy and Dave both laughed. Dave said, "The prevalence is relatively high. Two of my wives are sisters, and one is my niece. Roy's wife is my mother. My brother and his wife are in the Circle. Another wife's parents belong to the Circle. My stepson and stepdaughter are pledging the Circle. I don't think I've forgotten any situation, but that's just in MY family. There are all sorts of others. Once you have a good thing going, others will want in on it and they tend not to worry about traditional or even legal boundaries that others think of as taboo.